THE

CRITICAL

CRITICAL REVIEW. REVIEW.

For the Month of July, 1767.

ARTICLE I.

The Hiftory of the Life of King Henry the Second, and of the Age in which he lived, in five Books: to which is prefixed, a Hiftory of the Revolutions of England from the Death of Edward the Confeffor to the Birth of Henry the Second: by George Lord Lyttelton. In 3 Vols. 4to. Vols. 4to. Pr. 2l. 12s. 6d. Sandby.

TH

HE period which this noble author has chofen for the difplay of his historical abilities, is as inftructive and entertaining as any, perhaps, in the English annals. The life of Henry the Second contains a variety of events as wonderful as thofe that fill romance; and it is difficult to fay, whether his perfonal or political adventures are the most furprising. Both are fertile of scenes that call for the utmoft force of genius in writing; and we fhould be unfaithful critics, did we not acknowledge lord Lyttelton to be equal to the work.

But befides the great accomplishments of Henry the Second, his power, and the extent of his dominion, his lordship, in the choice he has made of his fubject, had a ftill farther inducement and encouragement. By a happy concurrence of circumftances, the age of Henry the Second produced better writers than any who appeared for five hundred years before, or for four hundred years after; and William of Maline bury may be confidered in fome measure as a claffic, though he lived at a time when the greatest part of Europe was plunged in barbarifm. Some other writers, of whofe labours the noble author has availed himself, are likewife far above the level of monkish learning; fo that, upon the whole, this period is furrounded with uncommon fplendor. Having faid thus much, we cannot forbear expreffing our regret, that writers of particular portions of history have not been at more pains in ascertaining the criVOL. XXIV. July, 1767. B terion

terion of credibility; a defideratum as neceffary to history as the longitude is to navigation. Whoever confiders the dependencies and connections of writers who give an account of the transactions of their own times, must be fenfible of the many temptations they are under to be biaffed. Who would now rely upon Buchanan's pen for a fair hiftory of the unfortunate queen Mary? or upon that of Clarendon, for impartial characters of his contemporary royalists?

3

The limits of our undertaking will not fuffer us to enter into any difcuffions of that kind with regard to the work before us; but we are of opinion, that even the teftimony of a contemporary author ought not to be always decifive of a fact; and that the patronage under which William of Malmesbury wrote, ought to render us cautious of taking every thing for granted, which is advanced even by that excellent hiftorian.

This work opens with The Hiftory of the Revolution of England from the Death of Edward the Confeffor to the Birth of Henry the Second.' The authorities, made ufe of by his lordship in this period, befides Malmesbury, is the Saxon Chronicle, one of the best historical evidences that any nation can produce, though dry and jejune; Simeon of Durham, a learned monk, who was affifted by Turgot, archbishop of St. Andrews (if they are not the fame); Diceto, who was dean of St. Paul's, but a very indifferent author, being for the most part a plagiary; and John Brompton, abbot of Scorewal in Richmondfhire, who is chiefly valuable for his collections of Anglo-Saxon history. Ordericus Vitalis, who wrote in the reign of the Conqueror, has likewife, and very defervedly, great weight with his lordfhip, as has alfo William of Poitou, with other writers of the fame time too tedious here to mention. The noble author gives us the following account of the Normans.

That country, called Neuftria, before it was gained by the Normans, had been yielded by Charles the Simple, in the year nine hundred and twelve, to Rollo, a Danish prince, who, at the head of an army collected from all Scandinavia, had taken Rouen, and invaded from thence the neighbouring provinces, till the progrefs of his arms was ftopped by this cefiion. For above half a century France had been defolated by these valiant corfairs, the last swarm of Barbarians emitted by the North. They came in flat-bottomed veffels, and failing up the mouths of the principal rivers, ravaged the country with hor rible devaftations: but none before Rollo had acquired any fixed establishment in that kingdom. To him and his fucceffors this province was granted, with the title of a dutchy, upon his confenting to embrace the Chriftian religion, and to hold his dutchy under homage to the French crown, which, by

the divifions that had happened in the family of Charlemagne, and the incapacity of most of his fucceffors, was fallen into great weakness. If the fame government had continued, the pofterity of Rollo would probably have become quite independent: but the monarchy being ftrengthened by the power of Hugh Capet and the kings of his race, the dukes of Normandy remained peers and vaffals of France; and the Normans were gradually humanized by their intercourse with the French. They had brought with them, and pertinaciously retained, a fierce spirit of liberty, common to all the northern nations : but, though they preferved feveral of their own ancient cuftoms, they received and adopted the system of feudal law, which was fettled in France about the time of Hugh Capet, thinking it neither inconfiftent with freedom, nor difagreeable to the genius of a military people. The treaty made with Rollo had rendered Bretagne à fief of their dutchy; and the Bretons were compelled, by the arms of the dukes of Normandy, to acknowledge their fovereignty; yet not without repeated and vigorous efforts to fhake off that dependence.'

Perhaps his lordfhip may fee some reason to alter this paragraph. Whether did the French humanize the Normans, or the Normans the French? Did not the Normans introduce into France, as well as into Italy, the most valuable parts of the feudal law? Did the Normans adopt Capet's fyftem, or Capet theirs? It is true, Capet ufurped the throne of France, as William did that of England; and the latter adopted fuch of the Capetine engraftments upon the feudal law as beft fuited the purposes of tyranny, and imported them into England, where all the beneficiary eftates were rendered hereditary.

His lordship, in his notes upon the Revolutions of England, has spoke but flightingly of the famous Bayeux tapestry, which we lately mentioned in our review of Dr. Ducarel's AngloNorinan Antiquities*. Without entering into any vindication of this tapestry, if we rightly recollect, Montfaucon, who is the only author his lordship appears to have confulted on the fubject, has given us only a partial exhibition of it; and we are of opinion that lord Lyttelton, when he wrote that part of his notes, had not feen Mr. Lethieullier's more full account; but whether it has made any impreffion upon his lordfhip, we do not pretend to determine. Tapestry-makers (fays he) are but bad historians." This cenfure may go too far, as it may tend to fculptures and the medallic arts. Let a tapestry weaver be ever fo ignorant of hiftory, yet his work

* See vol. xxiii. p. 346, & feq.

may be a good evidence of facts, if it bears undoubted marks of the time when, and the occafion upon which, it was compofed. Chiflet, one of the best antiquaries of the laft age, has quoted and engraved a piece of old tapeftry.in the palace of Bruffels, in which the French arms are represented to be three toads *. We cannot even help thinking that the tapestry walls of the house whereof his lordship is a member, are at least strong evidences of the Spanish invasion in 1588.

We are of opinion with his lordship, that the character of William Rufus has been too much depreciated by many hifto-rians; and the picture he gives us of that prince and his times, is, we think, drawn with the utmost juftice and precision. The account we have of the acceffion of Henry the First, and the great things he did for public liberty, contains fome uncommon obfervations. The nation (fays his lordship) refolved to give the crown to a prince, who fhould acquire and hold it under no other claim than a compact with his people: and tho' it would be difficult to justify their proceeding, either in conscience, or law, their policy may perhaps be accounted not unwife; as it made the title of the king become fecurity for the liberty of the fubject. To give that liberty a more folid and lafting establishment, they demanded a charter; which Henry granted foon after his coronation, as he had fworn to do before he was crowned. By this he restored the Saxon laws which were in ufe under Edward the Confeffor, but with fuch alterations, or (as he ftyled them) emendations, as had been made in them by his father with the advice of his parliament; at the fame time annulling all evil cuftoms, and illegal exactions, by which the realm had been unjustly oppreffed. Some of thofe grievances were specified in the charter, and the redrefs of them was there exprefly enacted. It also contained very confiderable mitigations of thofe feudal rights, claimed by the king over his tenants, and by them over theirs, which either were the most burthenfome in their own nature, or had been made so by an abufive extenfion. In fhort, all the liberty, that could well be confiftent with the safety and intereft of the lord in his fief, was Lallowed to the vaffal by this charter, and the profits due to the former was settled according to a determined and moderate rule of law. To use the words of one of our greatest antiquaries, Sir Henry Spelman, It was the original of King John's Magna Charta, containing most of the articles of it, either particularly expreffed, or in general, under the confirmation it gives to the laws of Edward the Confeffor. So mistaken are they, who have fuppofed that all the privileges granted in Magna Charta were

* Vide Lilium Francicum, p. 32.

innovations

innovations extorted by the arms of rebels from King John! a notion which seems to have been first taken up, not fo much out of ignorance, as from a bafe motive of adulation to fome of our princes in latter times, who, endeavouring to grasp at abfolute power, were defirous of any pretence to confider these laws, which stood in their way, as violent encroachments made by the barons on the ancient rights of the crown: whereas they were in reality reftitutions and fanctions of ancient rights enjoyed by the nobility and people of England in former reigns; or limitations of powers which the king had illegally and arbitrarily ftretched beyond their due bounds. In fome refpects this charter of Henry the First was more advantageous to liberty, than Magna Charta itself.'

The whole of this introductory part confifts of one hundred and fifty-three pages, in which we find little reprehenfible; though fome readers, perhaps, may think that the noble author has treated with too much coolness the infamous behaviour of Henry the First to his elder brother, who died in prifon. We do not remember that any mention is made of David king of Scots having been one of the principal inftruments in advising the close confinement of that unhappy prince, who died about the time of Henry the Second's birth. His lordfhip feems to be of opinion, that the relation of Henry Plantagenet to the Saxon royal blood, was fufficient to capacitate him to fucceed to the government, according to the ancient cuftoms of England. We think the noble author has not fufficiently explained the differences between Henry the First and his fon-in-law Geoffrey Plantagenet, who, upon the death of Robert, Henry's eldeft brother, actually claimed the dukedom of Normandy; and that he has too flightly touched on that part of Henry's conduct. Might there not have been a collufion between him and his daughter, a weak, haughty woman, to elude Geoffrey's just demands? Did not Henry, by remaining in Normandy, while his throne was fhaken by the Welsh, fhew that he confidered his kingdom as only fupplementary to his duchy? His lordship employs fome pains to prove Henry the First to have been a great man, and upon the whole a good king. We cannot forbear demurring to the latter part of this character. The charter of liberties which he had given to the English had been extorted from him; and though he left the English the forms of their conftitution, its fpirit was evaporated.

His lordship, in treating of the acceffion of king Stephen, fhews the accidents by which the measures Henry the First had taken to fecure his dominions to his daughter and grandfon, were defeated; and he is of opinion, that if Stephen, who was